The purpose of this project is the study of genome structure and function of the Aleutian disease virus (ADV), a nondefective parvovirus of mink. Further studies on this project have included development for a strategy to molecularly clone genomic segments of ADV field strains not adapted to cell culture. The first strategy was to extract single stranded virion DNA from virus purified from mink organs, to produce duplex monomeric (DM) DNA in vitro via self-primed DNA synthesis, and to clone this DNA. To date, we produced this synthetic DM and verified several restriction enzyme recognition sites common to ADV-G and three field strains of ADV (Utah I, Pullman and DK). The second strategy utilized DNA from Hirt supernatants of cells infected with Utah I ADV. Although complete replication of Utah I does not occur in cell culture, conversion of input DNA to replicative form (RF) was sufficient to provide material for cloning. A segment analogous to the EcoRI-Hind III segment of ADV-G (pBM1) was cloned into pUC8. This plasmid, denoted pUT1-1, was found to be indistinguishable from pBM1 by heteroduplex mapping but to have several differences by restriction enzyme mapping pUT1-1 also directed synthesis of ADV antigens in E. coli similar to those induced by pBM1. Comparison of ADV antigens induced by pBM1 and pUT1-1 is currently underway and has been facilitated by use of a coupled in vitro transcription/translation system.